The WELL Building Standard, a certification mark of the International WELL Building Institute, includes a separate WELL Performance Rating centred on measured building performance and occupant experience. The rating remains current, may be pursued independently of full certification and requires achievement of at least 21 of its 33 measurable performance-based strategies. It is pass or fail rather than tiered, and a successful rating is valid for one year before annual renewal is required.
The Performance Rating is designed around evidence of how an occupied place performs rather than around design intention alone. Its strategies use data drawn from physical conditions, installed monitoring systems and occupant experience. The result is a focused annual rating rather than a comprehensive certification across the whole standard.
This difference affects who needs to be involved. Facilities teams and building operators control access, operating conditions and monitoring systems. Technical specialists may manage testing or data quality. Workplace and organisational teams may be responsible for occupant surveys. Project managers must connect those streams into one coherent submission.
The rating can be pursued as a standalone achievement or alongside full certification or another relevant programme. Separate pursuit does not make it a preliminary certification level. The rating has its own requirements, verification routes and annual cycle, and it should be named accurately in project records and public statements.
The rating contains 33 measurable performance-based strategies, and at least 21 must be achieved. The requirement is expressed as a minimum number of achieved strategies rather than as a points total or a percentage score. A project therefore needs a credible portfolio of strategies that can each be verified through the route assigned to them.
The 21-of-33 structure allows selection, but not every combination is equally practical. A strategy may depend on building systems, occupancy, available data, access or organisational control. Early feasibility work should identify strategies that are achievable and have a viable evidence route.
A strategy should not be counted merely because an activity appears aligned with it. Achievement depends on the current requirement and verification method. A project forecast can distinguish between selected, evidenced and accepted strategies.
Contingency remains useful even though the rating is pass or fail. A programme built around exactly the minimum can be vulnerable if one expected strategy becomes unavailable or fails review. Any additional strategies pursued for resilience are project choices, not a change to the scheme's published threshold.
The Performance Rating has no Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum levels. A project either meets the rating requirements or it does not. The scheme owner's current overview states that 21 strategies are required and that there are no distinct achievement levels within the rating.
This pass-or-fail structure should shape reporting. Internal dashboards may show progress, confidence and the number of strategies expected to pass, but those management indicators are not external rating levels. Descriptions such as high-tier performance rating or premium performance rating would create a hierarchy that the programme does not contain.
Projects may achieve different strategy combinations and use different verification routes. The formal outcome nevertheless remains the same annual rating once the minimum is met.
The rating should also not be expressed as a numerical score out of 33 unless the context makes clear that the number simply records strategies achieved. The programme outcome is pass or fail, not a graduated award based on the exact total above the minimum.
One verification route is on-site testing. A WELL Performance Testing Agent or another professional accepted for a particular strategy may collect the required physical performance data in the completed and occupied facility. The applicable strategy determines whether this route is required or available.
On-site testing provides location-specific evidence from the building under the conditions required by the scheme. It is not replaced by a design calculation, equipment schedule or commissioning statement where the strategy specifically calls for measured performance. Those records may still be relevant context, but they answer a different question.
Testing must be planned around access, occupancy and normal building operation. The project team needs to ensure that the relevant spaces are available and that the facility is in a suitable state for the required work. The rating's measurable character therefore creates a programme dependency that cannot be resolved through late document preparation alone.
This page does not describe testing methods or numerical limits. Those matters sit in the separate pages on performance verification, measured concepts and air-quality performance testing.
A second route uses data from permanently installed continuous monitoring sensors where the relevant strategy permits that approach. The presence of a sensor does not by itself establish achievement. The system must produce the type of data, coverage and evidence required by the strategy.
Continuous monitoring can provide a longer view than a site visit, but the submission still needs a controlled data trail showing included locations, management responsibility, interruptions and the required reporting period.
The scheme owner's guidance notes that some strategies allow sensor data instead of performance testing. Where that option is used, the project team may collect the data without contracting a Performance Testing Agent for that specific route. The exact choice remains feature-dependent rather than universal across the rating.
For facilities teams, the operational issue is continuity. A monitoring system that is installed but not maintained, reviewed or capable of exporting the necessary record may not support the intended strategy. The rating therefore links technology with routine management rather than treating hardware purchase as the whole requirement.
A third route uses occupant experience surveys where applicable. These surveys provide evidence about how people perceive and experience the building, adding a human-response stream to physical measurements and sensor records. The survey route is relevant only to strategies that identify it as an accepted or required form of evidence.
Survey evidence needs an organised administration process. The project must determine the relevant population, issue the survey through an accepted route, preserve the required records and present the resulting information in the form expected by the scheme. Informal comments or isolated complaints are not substitutes for the defined survey pathway.
The value of the survey route is structural rather than anecdotal. It recognises that measured physical conditions and occupant experience are related but not identical. A building can produce instrument data while occupants provide information about comfort, usability and perception that instruments do not directly express.
The three routes should not be treated as interchangeable at will. Each strategy specifies the applicable verification method or permitted options. A project cannot replace a required site test with a survey, or replace required survey evidence with sensor data, merely because another route is easier to organise.
The Performance Rating is valid for one year and is renewed annually. Renewal requires the project to validate current performance data rather than rely indefinitely on the evidence used for the initial achievement. The scheme owner describes annual renewal as the process through which building performance data is reviewed for the succeeding period.
The annual cycle has practical consequences. Testing dates, data-reporting periods, survey administration and review milestones need to be placed in an operational calendar. Responsibility should remain with named roles after the initial project team has dispersed.
Changes to space use, occupancy, monitoring systems or operational control can affect the next renewal. A strategy that passed previously should not be presumed to remain valid without checking that its conditions and evidence route still apply.
The neighbouring pages cover the Health-Safety Rating, the two-stage full-certification verification process, the map of quantities measured on site and the separate air thresholds without repeating those subjects here.
This website is an independent explanatory resource with no affiliation, endorsement, accreditation, partnership, assessor, provider or agency status under the scheme. It does not conduct scheme reviews, carry out rating assessments, award the rating or represent International WELL Building Institute pbc.
The scheme's manuals and feature materials are protected works and are therefore summarised rather than reproduced. Project teams should use the current material issued by the scheme owner to determine strategy wording, applicability and accepted evidence.
Accurate description protects both the project and the reader. The achievement should be called the WELL Performance Rating, described as annual and pass or fail, and kept distinct from full certification and from any internal performance score.
An independent resource. WELL is a certification mark of the International WELL Building Institute pbc. No affiliation, endorsement or accreditation.
At least 21 of the 33 measurable performance-based strategies must be achieved. The threshold is a count of accepted strategies rather than a points score.
No. The Performance Rating is pass or fail. The tiered levels belong to full certification and should not be applied to this rating.
Depending on the strategy, verification may use on-site testing, data from permanently installed continuous monitoring sensors or occupant experience surveys. The applicable route is determined by the current strategy requirements.
No. Some strategies allow sensor data as an alternative, while others specify another route. The project must follow the verification method or options stated for the individual strategy.
The rating is valid for one year and must be renewed annually. Renewal requires current evidence appropriate to the strategies being maintained.
No. It is a separate, focused annual rating concerned with measurable performance and occupant experience. Full certification has a broader structure, different award architecture and a separate recertification cycle.
This site is an independent information resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, accredited by or authorised by the International WELL Building Institute pbc, which owns the WELL certification mark, and it is not a certification body, an assessor, a performance testing provider or a scheme partner. Nothing on this page can certify, assess or award anything under the scheme, and nothing here is a substitute for the scheme's own published documentation. Requirements are summarised factually rather than reproduced; where a numeric threshold is stated it is drawn from documentation the scheme's owner publishes openly, and the specific figure is cited rather than the table it sits in. Certification under the scheme is voluntary and is not required by any authority in the United Arab Emirates.